Interfacial Solar Steam/Vapor Generation for Heating and Cooling

Abstract

Interfacial solar steam/vapor technology uses abundant and clean solar energy and water to achieve heating and cooling, a promising technology to alleviate environmental and energy issues. To obtain higher conversion and utilization efficiency, designing and optimizing materials, structures, and devices of interfacial solar steam/vapor technologies attract the attention of the research community. Given the significant progress made in the past 5 years, it is valuable to systematically summarize and discuss recent developments and future trends in this new multidisciplinary direction. This review aims to introduce interfacial solar steam/vapor principles to realize heating and cooling and the recent progress in materials, structures, devices, and applications. Meanwhile, some unsolved scientific and technical problems with outlook will also be discussed, hoping to promote further the rapid development and application of interfacial solar steam/vapor technology in heating and cooling to alleviate energy and environmental problems.